The LNER Encyclopedia

Does anyone have accurate info on when these might be released - I don't believe their website forecast of Q4 2017.

I've ordered one despite some misgivings based on their past history in railway products.

Risky subject? Let's hope not....

It's all gone a little quiet, and one has to wonder whether there is any connection to Lyndon Davies taking the Hornby job? Wait and see on that front.

I was (perhaps over-optimistically?) fairly comfortable with Oxford's likely outcome on the N7. They were showing a good understanding of the variation within the class parts, and for all the faults of some of their model railway products, I felt that too little allowance was being made for the learning curve of moving into this class of model production. Their most significant model release to date, the LNER 6 plank general merchandise open, is a good item. The brake gear error is simple to fix, and no worse than what Bach and Hornby have bestowed upon us in new wagon toolings in the past fifteen years; and in every respect as a model I think it superior to all Dapol steam era wagon models, of which least said the better.

Having quite recently had a Radial tank to work on for a friend, my assessment would be that had this been launched alongside the first of Bachmann's Blue Riband items, and the Hornby MN circa 2000, it would have received a real welcome. It was easy to fix its worst defect, the mechanism intruding into the underboiler space, something rather more problematic to achieve on competing products from other manufacturers.